Like Iron
by Anduniel
Summary: This is a very short POV vignette of Dis, mother of Fili and Kili.


Like Iron

G, sad but clean.

_I don't own, but I don't think anyone else has staked this particular claim, so hey, finders keepers. With respect to Prof. Tolkien and his estate._

_This is a POV vignette of Dis, mother of Fili and Kili (the two nephews of Thorin Oakenshield, both of whom died in the battle of the Five armies (The Hobbit). I wondered how she would feel about that. Dwarves eat potatoes. They discovered them (see Turin and Mim). The dwarven culture is pretty under represented in the books, so I made one to fit. _

There aren't many of us left, and of us very few women. Few to bear the children. From the day they are born they are being shaped, worked upon, polished and re-polished. There is no gold more precious than a child, nor more rare. But for women it is different. From the moment they begin to grow inside us, we work on them. We shape them, and forge them within us. We become a forge, bearer of the inner fire, that which is beyond Aule. The fire of Eru. It is a strange time for a dwarf, since we are of Aule: our shape, our language, our thoughts- nothing we are is not crafted by him. Save this fire. To have that fire inside of you, to bear it forth, it is a strange feeling indeed.

It leads to even stranger obligations, for we dwarves understand possession. To create something is to be its master. To create makes it yours. That is why all dwarves are 'of' Aule. That is why we respect above all the rights of others to possess, the right of the creator. We respect the creator who ha crafted all for us: we dig in the earth for food, and into rock for homes, and metals for wealth. From the earth comes forth springs to serve us. The earth yields to us all things, all things from Aule and therefore from Aule we receive, as his children, all we need. From what is given we shape and craft, forge something new, bring something new to the world. We charge for our services; we labor for our materials; we fight for our land. It means a great many things to possess, but it if you truly own something you may give it without hesitation, and for that reason dwarves are generous. We are not beholden, never craven. All we have we own and may give at will.

When our sons are old enough, and most of our children are sons, they go off with their fathers to repay the debt of their father's crafting. Upon the death of their fathers their lives are their own. With girls it is different. They do not leave of us, they are women as well, carriers of fire, and fire is the one material not born of the earth. It came from the sky first; it brings light into the earth's darkness. It is of Eru, as much as life is. So women owe no debt, for they are given a gift beyond the earth, the gift of Eru, and we do not question why some children are chosen by him and some are not. Yet we treat them differently, we do not see them as of their father. To have a daughter is to have treasure that will always be with you, or give freely, for freely was she gifted with womanhood. Wives, mothers and sisters keep the halls always. We call girls in our tongue the 'Mithril of Eru' for they are rare beyond gold. Their shape, whether they be as hardy and skilled as our men, or are fated to become the rarest of all dwarves – mothers, that is a great mystery and labor. Women create children, their fathers have a hand in the crafting, but it is women who bear them to life. That is why we can let them go.

I bore no Mithril of Eru, only 'golden' children, sons, and because I knew them to be mine I could let them go, and because they must grow to be their own men they followed the people of their lord. They paid the debt to father and lord, the debt that Eru gifts from women, the debt of men. I let them go, and I know that I crafted good men, for they paid their debt in full. Once that debt was paid, they were brought back to me. Together, since from earliest childhood they had always been together. To me they were brought, since they are mine, and my people know what it means to find something that belongs to another. They understand rights.

I was born a lady of my people, though we have always had a king. I could have chosen not to labor as the women of elf lords, or only worked with the most precious of stones- but I am a dwarf. I can bend iron, cast glass and hammer gold, yet above all I enjoyed working with stone. So now I work with stone again, making a bed for my sons, one for each, a single tomb together as in life. When they were young I bought them soft blankets, I traded for them with shepherd's wives, tall women who were honest, and knew much labor in their brief lives. I traded iron for softness then, and now I must give that softness back. I carve each a stone bed, with a well-crafted lid. I carve their sweet faces on them from memory alone, I have no need to use the features on the flesh to guide me, for I myself carved that flesh within my own body. I know every curve and fold, I remember those cheeks when they were round and soft, my lips touched those brows when they were warm. I ring the lids with images, something our women are more skilled at than our men. I have never before considered why this would be, and now I know too well. This task takes me weeks, but I will not have another to help me.

This crafting is considered an honor among our people, and it is accounted a great tragedy when you cannot choose how to house your own kin. Whenever female kin outlives, it is their right to do such, though men often must take the role. It is an even greater tragedy when we cannot bury, for it is proper to give back to the earth, we who are sprung from it. Only once in our people's history have we failed to bury our dead. I enjoy this labor, to see them well kept, just as I remember using tallow lights to check their sleeping forms, and that seems not long ago. I have always enjoyed carving stone. I carve two beds for two dead sons, and a heart of stone for myself. Today, and for many days after, I will carve the tomb for my sons. And then I must journey to the tomb of my brother they died for, for our mother is dead, and the funeral rites belong to the women.

It is a long labor, and a long journey. Though my line is royal, we are in exile; and Dain has not profited so greatly from the Lonely Mountain to relieve all of our evils. I do not always believe the words of my people, for my heart says that sons are more precious than gold. I would not have traded them for a mountain of gold. There is no wergild to relieve my heart, and no words can heal it. There are only such crafts as we possess. Women are the Mithril of Eru, they can be beautiful beyond all other metals, but metal nonetheless- the strongest of all metals; that is what I must tell myself as I carve these stones.


End file.
